Raising The Bar
by H AKA Ryn
Summary: Sasuke Uchiha was always second best, striving to win. However, the arrival of a new team-mate threatens his success. He also threatens Sasuke's resolve and heart. Sasuke's going to have to raise the bar and jump to new heights to reach his goals. YAOI LEMON in later chapters, SasuNaru suggested GaaLee, SakuSai and others . Rated M.
1. New Kid

**Author's Notes:**

****Well hai thar. I'm Leighanne Shay, AKA Ren Jackson.

I previously wrote a story called 'Raising the Bar' which got many great reviews, but I was never to satisfied, so I quit writing it. HOWEVER, I recently took a writing class, and have begun to rewrite it. So here's the new result :3

ALSO! Just like last time, pay attention to my A/N footnotes, I have story announcements and request info there. I will reply to as many reviews as possible, just like last time. ENJOY!

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**CHAPTER 1**

**the new kid**

Sasuke stared into his locker for a long minute and sighed. He felt a heavy clasp against his back. He turned to see none other than Kiba.

"Why the long face?" Sasuke's companion said with a large grin. It was answered with a glare.

"Uh, did Shizune give you detention again?"

"Yeah, for failing an English Grammar test." Sasuke said.

"Well, see you in a bit. I'm heading off now." Kiba said, sauntering off down the hall as other students bustled past in a hurry to get to their extra curricular activities.

Sasuke Uchiha was your average varsity jock. Good looks, average grades, a rock hard body that proved his skill. Still, the Uchiha teen was missing something that not even he knew about… let alone that it—and its bright yellow hair—had just brushed past him in the hall. Going completely unnoticed by Sasuke, who ducked into Shizune's English Language classroom.

Fourty-five minutes later, Sasuke was already done and changed into his blue top and white athlete shorts and wandering up to the track.

The spring heat radiated off the Konoha High School turfed football field while the remainder of the track team finished up their beginning run and exercises and were just starting to gather for the group stretch.

Rock Lee was in the middle, overly enthusiastic about leading the stretches. Most ignored him and chatted calmly among themselves.

The relay captains, Sakura and Ino, were in their usual bicker, which stopped almost immediately when they caught sight of Sasuke, and switched to swooning endlessly over him.

Kiba waved at his bud, and his dog, Akumaru, barked from his usual spot on the sidelines, seemingly cheering on his human companion.

Kakashi had been late, again, and took his spot sitting next to a ranting coach Gai, who was thinking up an impossible practice rutine. Kakashi ignored him and read his book instead.

Shikamaru was laying on the ground, staring at the clouds; Choji was eating; Temari was playing with a leaf that the wind had blown next to her; Gaara was hiding in his 'emo corner' and Kankuro was being an idiot, as usual. Hinata was being shy, and her cousin, Neji, was standing next to her, acting as her protector; TenTen was doing a separate series of stretches for her Javelin and Hammer throw; Coach Asuma and his wife, coach Kurenai—who was very pregnant—were off to the side, being lovey-dovey; Shino was playing with the insects on the turf and Sai was staring intensely at... nothing. All as usual.

Shizune came up behind Sasuke, who had just spent the last half an hour making up her difficult test. "Where's Tsunade, aren't we suppose to get our positions for next week's meet today?" Sasuke asked, not looking at the teacher.

"Here she comes now." Shizune said as a golf cart came speeding up the sidewalk from the school. The golf cart seemed out of control, but no one seemed to be shocked as it came to a screetching hault inches away from Shizune and Sasuke. Shizune had jumped back, but Sasuke hadn't even flinched.

"You old hag! You about killed me!" A cocky voice came from the other side of Tsunade, who was parked in the drivers seat.

The athletes perked up, and gathered around the boy who had exited the golf cart. He dusted off his navy blue shorts and obnoxious orange tee before facing the crowd that had formed.

"You old hag! You about killed me!" A cocky, and childish voice came from behind Tsunade.

"Team, this is Naruto Uzimaki, he will be on our team for here on out." Tsunade said.

"Dattebayo." Naruto said, grinning oddly.

"What is _that?_" Sasuke asked, coldly.

"_That_ is your new team mate, and relay partner, and jumping partner." Tsunade said just as coldly.

Sasuke crossed his arms and had a stare down with the blond, who just grinned back. He wasn't nervous at all. This boy didn't seem to be able to take on Sasuke.

"Hi. My name is Lee, you may call me Rock Lee! I am team captain and I would be glad to recruit you into a throwing event!" Rock Lee practically yelled at the new boy, jumping over Kiba and Gaara and shoving TenTen and Sasuke out of the way.

"Sorry, but I only do High Jump." Naruto said with a small grin.

Lee seemed to pout as Sakura and Ino squealed, "Another high jumper!"

"Listen up! Here's our placements!" Tsunade called. Some of the Athletes ignored her, knowing what to expect. "Gaara- Pole and Long; Shikamaru- Long and Triple; Naruto and Sasuke-High; Sai, you've been move to triple jump; Ino and Sakura- 32 and 16-hundred; Kankuro- 800; Neji- 800;Temari- 400; Kiba-400 and 300 Hurdles; Shino- 300 hurdles; Hinata- 100 Hurdles; Rock Lee and Choji- Shot and Discus; and TenTen Javelin and Hammer throw."

Naruto leaned to Sasuke, "Why does she announce events, do you change?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Well yeah, you have four events you do intermitately, a relay and the top five runners do the 100 meter dash."

Naruto's brows furrowed. "That's weird."

"Deal with it Dobe." Sasuke replied with a gruff.

"Dobe? What the heck are you saying, Teme?" Naruto spat back.

"Line up for dash times!" Gai called.

The group gathered around Shino, who had a board laid out on the ground. "Make your bets here."

"What's this?" Naruto asked, walking up to him.

"You can bet on the winner's speed or a specific person's speed. We're betting on you, so don't bet on yourself." He said monotonously as he took many bets on Sasuke's record, of 12.4 seconds.

Naruto dropped a dollar on 11.5 seconds without hesitating.

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**A/N Footnotes:**

****I am still doing the Suggest and Request!

You request it, I can put it in (either her or Yaoi High Drabbles).

I only take requests from reviews!


	2. Bells

**Author's Notes**

****Hey guys! Hope you're liking the rewrites. There's not that much of a difference in this chapter.

Don't forget R&R!

Enjoy.

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**CHAPTER 2**

**Bells**

Sasuke panted as he tried to catch his breath after his 100-meter dash timing.

"Looks like Naruto's up next." Sai told his teammate. Sasuke looked up at the blond athlete. He was jumping up and down, trying to get the blood flowing to his legs. "There's a pool going on. Shino's trying to see who's gonna guess his time. I went for eleven-eight."

Sasuke laughed. The others were always trying to find ways to bet, but they never bet for money. He turned to Kiba, who was sitting next to Shino. The names of the athletes were in a row, followed by their own times, then their predictions for Naruto. "Kiba, put me down for a eleven-four."

Kiba looked at the sheet, he shook his head. "Taken by Sakura."

"Fine, what's left?"

"Anything under ten-eight, eleven-zero, twelve-four, twelve-seven and anything above a thirteen-two." Shino replied.

"Fine, eleven-zero." Sasuke said, sighing.

"'Kay."

"Ready!" Gai yelled.

The five athletes jumped into their blocks. Naruto was in lane five, Choji in four, Shikamaru in three, Ino in two and Sakura in one.

"Set!" Gai held up his gun and the athletes stuck their butts into the air.

Gai pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. Kakashi held his own gun up and shot into the air. The bang sounded and the runners took off. It was a very close race, luckily they had accu-track, allowing them to see the exact timing of the runners.

Naruto crossed the line first. Ino and Sakura were neck in neck as well, but Choji was in obvious last place. Shikamaru barely beat Choji, but it was obvious he wasn't even trying.

Naruto held out a hand to Shikamaru, who took it. _Very sportsman-like_. Sasuke thought to himself.

A minute later Gai and Kakashi were muttering to themselves discussing at the times. Gai turned to the team. "We have our results." He said with a grin.

"Top five are Sai at 12.0 seconds, Lee at 11.5 seconds, Kiba at 11.4 seconds, Sasuke at 11.2 seconds…" Kakashi stated, reading out the times. Sasuke cheered inside. He was only 0.2 seconds away from his goal.

The team gasped. They couldn't decide if the shock that no one won the bet was a shocking as Sasuke not having the fastest time.

The team split up into their respective events, Naruto following closely behind Sasuke towards the high jump pit. Sasuke stopped and turned to the boy. "I assume since Tsunade had you replace Sai in high jump that you're pretty good." He said, sounding bored.

"Yeah, I can jump a five-eight." Naruto said, with a new found confidence.

"Then jump five-eight."

"Okay, can I mark off?" Naruto asked calmly as Asuma walked over, he was the jumping coach, and had decided the new kid needed his help more that the long jump.

"Yeah. Hey Asuma, raise the bar to five. He's gonna jump it." Sasuke called over to the coach.

"Show some respect, Sasuke." Asuma said with a laugh as he raised the bar without question.

Naruto marked off at seven steps. Before he jumped, he added an extra two foot lengths to his distance.

Naruto lunged forward with two long bounds, before breaking into a pure sprint. He planted his foot, and easily made it over the bar, with room to spare.

"Raise the bar." Naruto said to the coach, who complied, raising it to five-five.

Sasuke looked up to the familiar routine.

Naruto took off again. Sasuke took in a deep breath to see the blond clear the bar again. Naruto landed, not so gracefully onto the mats on the other side of the poll. He leaned his head back, to see Asuma, who appeared to be upside-down to the blond.

"Five-Eight?" the blond asked, in a joking tone. "Or do you want a jump?" He directed his second question to the raven, who didn't reply. Asuma bumped to pole up again.

Naruto kicked his legs over his head, so he did a backwards somersault, he landed on the turf on the balls of his feet. He jumped up and rushed towards where Sasuke was. He went straight to his mark this time, not bothering to back it up by the two foot lengths. He flat out sprinted that time, no lunging.

Again, he made it over the bar, but his left ankle barely nicked the bar as he went over, and it bounced, but ultimately stayed put.

Sasuke raised his eyebrows at the blond, laughing eternally as he walked over to his own mark.

When Naruto noticed what he was doing, he rolled out of the way just in time. When he stood and faced Sasuke, he witnessed something that made his heart skip.

Sasuke gracefully glided over the bar and from where Naruto was crouch next to the pad, it looked as if he was flying the air, clearing the bar easily with several inches to spare.

Naruto knocked on the door to his new home. No one answered, which he was expecting. He slid the key easily into the lock. The door opened with a satisfying click. The door opened with a loud creak. He reminded himself to buy some WD-40 in order to fix that.

The floor mat that welcomed him in with flowers lining the word was about the only welcoming thing about the kitchen, except the pantry. It was a three room, one story house, though he was not sure why his mother bought the three rooms. The people of this house consisted of him and his mother.

His mother. Now there was a tough subject. Naruto dropped his stuff on the round table in the middle of the kitchen. To the right of the table was a room that had been converted to a storage/study, though there was nothing of it to be a study. His mother worked what nights she could, and all day every day and rarely saw her son.

Further behind the table was a half wall, which opened up to the living room. His mother had left the news on, and the weather woman was explaining that there was a cold front coming in.

Naruto shut off the TV and headed toward his own room. He left the living room the back way, which dumped you at the back door and a hall way that lead to his mother's room. He turned left into another hallway that hosted the bathroom and his yet-to-be-unpacked bedroom.

There was a bed and several boxes scattered around the room.

The front door slammed open. The door squeaked, with annoyance.

Naruto sighed when he heard his mother laughing with her co-worker. The first week of her work and she was already bringing men home.

Naruto realized he was _not_ going to be able to finish his homework anytime soon.

The next day, after a scarce night of sleep, Naruto sauntered onto the track field. He sat in between Sasuke and Sai in the stretch circle. Tsunade was making announcements.

"The next meet is in five days. Our required relay teams have been made, and they will be annonced momentarily, but first, Sasuke, you won the pool yesterday on Naruto's times, who's your slave?"

"What?" Naruto asked, confused.

"We host Pools, a way for us to be a team, and the winner gets to choose one other athlete to be their slave for a day." Tsunade explained. There was a gleam in her eye when she explained the gambling. "Sasuke, don't choose Naruto since he's new."

Sasuke looked around the circle. He smirked. "I choose... Gaara." several people smirked and some laughed.

"Payback." Kankuro said.

"I assume this is to get me back for the whole treating me as a King thing, am I correct?" Gaara said in his raspy voice.

"Now that that's done, your day will be tomorrow, we have relay teams to get too." Tsunade lifted up her clipboard. "Team 1 will be Gaara, Kankuro, Temari and Shikamaru with Coach Kurenai. Team 2 will be Hinata, Neji, Lee and TenTen with Coach Gai. Team 3 will be Sakura, Sai, Sasuke and Naruto with Coach Kakashi. Team four will be Ino, Choji, Shino and Kiba with Coach Asuma. The top two teams will compete. Dismissed."

The students went to opposite corners of the track. Naruto followed Sasuke and Sai, who was chatting freely with the pink haired Sakura. _Her hair really does look like Cherry Blossoms._ Naruto thought to himself as he walked behind Sakura.

Kakashi was sitting backwards in a chair reading his book.

"Good Afternoon, kids." Kakashi said. No one answered. "First off, Sai will start us, then Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto will be Anchor."

Sasuke's throat clenched. He wasn't Anchor. He didn't know whether to take this as a good thing or a bad.

"We'll be working on speed and Stamina today." He held up three bells that clinked together. "Get these bells. One for each of you."

Naruto decided to state the obvious. "There's three bells."

"Yes, one of you will be a loser, and a slave to the others for the rest of the day." Kakashi said. Naruto saw Sakura gulp.

"Go." Kakashi said, and suddenly he was out of his chair sprinting downhill to the throwing pits. Sai was the first to take off after him. Followed closely by the others, except Sakura.

Naruto was focusing so hard on the bells that he didn't notice that when Kakashi looped back around the equipment shed, he stopped. Sakura jumped out and snatched the first bell.

"She may not be fast on her feet, but she's lightning quick with her mind." Sai said, taking off after the speeding Kakashi.

"Enjoy running!" Sakura called after the others.

Ten minutes later, as Sakura was doing various push-ups and curl-ups, the others were still barreling after Kakashi. Naruto had almost grabbed one, but was tripped by a sleeping Akumaru, and was followed up by a lecture from Kiba about watching where he was going. During the lecture, Sai snagged a bell from Kakashi.

Naruto groaned. He was fast when running on a _straight_ line. Not twisting around the place like Kakashi was doing.

Naruto was soon at Sasuke's side, who was panting heavily. Naruto was barely breaking a sweat. He could go on forever at full speed, but had issues turning.

Finally, twenty minutes later, that last bell was claimed.

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**A/N Footnotes**

****Mwahahah! Cliff hanger :P

Don't forget you can request and suggest!


	3. Detention

**Author's Notes**

You post fast when it's just rewrites. :3

Short chapter. I'm 90% sure I had a reason for it...

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**CHAPTER 3**

**Detention**

"Psst. Naruto... wake up! Dobe..." Sasuke whispered in history.

"Teme, I ain't no dobe if I can beat you." Naruto groaned, shifting so he would face the opposite way from Sasuke. "Plus, the teacher's Shizune, she's not gonna care."

Bad, bad, bad, BAD mistake. The yard stick slapped into the back of Naruto's head, waking him up in less than a millisecond.

"WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT—" Naruto cut himself off when he saw the strong purple and black aura Shizune was giving off.

"Naruto... an hour of detention after school." Shizune growled. Naruto groaned.

"Aw, gimme a break, lady. I was up all night and—GYAA!" Naruto barely ducked in time to dodge Shizune's swing as she used the yard stick as a bat to try to hit the blond hair. "Crazy woman."

"Two hours." Shizune growled.

"Hey, that's no fair! He's gotta practice high jump with us!" Sasuke said. He instantaneously regretted it.

"Then you'll be sharing detention with him." The woman said. Somewhere in the front of the room, a pig oinked.

"Goddammit Dobe." Sasuke said as they remained in their chairs after class. It had been only a few days since Naruto's arrival, and the two boys were already in detention. "Why did you have to sleep? Now I'm missing my slave day with Gaara. If it weren't for the fact that practice doesn't start till four-thirty, I would murder you."

Naruto gave Sasuke the death glare. "Because I had to run around like a dog and be _your_ slave. On top of that, my mom didn't allow me to get a wink of sleep! That's why I slept."

Sauske cocked his head to the side, a little amused. "Why not?"

Naruto thought over whether or not he wanted to reply to that.

Sasuke pounced Naruto—which happened to be very un-sauske like—and started tickling Naruto.

"Go-god dammit S-Sauske!" Naruto laughed as tears ran down his face.

"Tell me." Sasuke said, tickling Naruto some more.

"Fine!" Naruto said. Sasuke momentarily stopped his attack. "My mom and the guy she brought home—uh, sounded like they were, uhm, about to knock the wall over."

Sasuke's hands fell. _Not_ what he was expecting.

"Uhm, Sasuke? Can you at least move your hand..." Naruto said, turning his head away as he blushed.

Sauske looked down, he was sitting on top of Naruto's legs, straddling him, and his hands had fallen near the blond's pants zipper.

Sasuke moved his hands away, blushing like mad as he felt himself get a little hard from the unexpected intamate contact.

_Get a fuckin' hold of yourself Sasuke._ _Naruto is a _guy. _A __**GUY**__. Don't get __on__ over a guy._ He tried to will himself to calm down, but his heart wasn't helping, seeing that it was running a million miles an hour.

Sasuke grabbed the desk next to him to lean on as he stood up. He looked up at the clock as he walked away from the blond, who was sprawled out on the floor. They stayed silent for a very, _v__ery _long time. Sasuke finally decided to break the silence.

"That went fast, only 45 minutes left." Sasuke said. "You better be glad JV has early practice today. Track hasn't started."

"We're jumping today right?" Naruto asked, finally standing up. He looked nervous and a little unsettled. His hair, which had already been a little untidy, was now completely chaotic. Part of his hair was matted down while the other part stuck straight up in every direction.

"Hn."

"Hn? What the heck does that mean?" Naruto snapped.

"It means I could care less! As long as I am either increasing my height or decreasing my time, I'm happy." Sasuke growled back.

Naruto cocked his head to the side again, looking at Sasuke with a very confused, and frustrated look.

"Why wouldn't you care if your jumping." Naruto asked, "If you're a jumper, wouldn't you rather jump than run?"

Sasuke jerked his head to face Naruto. "I only want to defeat someone. Beyond that, I don't care. I don't care if you run faster than me or—heck!—why don't you jump higher than me as well?" Sasuke slammed his fist into the desk. Naruto jumped back and flinched. Sasuke noticed, but ignored the reaction.

"Why are you mad at me?" Naruto whispered.

Sasuke sighed, shaking his head. "I'm not mad at you, just mad at my… rival."

"Who?"

"You'll just have to find out at the meet this weekend." Sasuke joked. Naruto groaned.

"Naruto, Sauske. you can come to practice now." Shizune said, walking into the room an half an hour before detention was suposively over.

The boys didn't need to be told twice, before she could say anything else, they were out the door.

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**A/N Footnotes**

Dont forget to Request and Suggest!


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